An aspiring writer dealing with life and chronic illness

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The Story of How I Met My Husband

A Picture of me and My Husband at our Engagement Dinner 7 years ago

I blacked out my husband’s face because he doesn’t want to appear on my blog XD So today is my 7th wedding anniversary. I actually got married pretty young. I was in my early 20s, just before I started grad school. I don’t think any marriage is easy. I know ours hasn’t been. I was relatively healthy when we got married. I think when most people say, “For Better or Worse,” as part of their wedding vows they don’t really understand what they are committing to. When we got married, I had no idea that two years later my joints would start rapidly deteriorating and I would relapse into anorexia. I was not the same person my husband married mentally or physically. Every year my health kept getting worse, and I didn’t even have a diagnosis for what was wrong.

It’s definitely not easy to live with someone that has a chronic illness. To say that it’s hard on a relationship would be an understatement, and I don’t mean to undermine his struggles. He had to give up some of his dreams for me, and there was a period where he had to mourn the loss of what our relationship used to be. I’ve seen so many men leave their wives or girlfriends because they have hip problems or Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and they just can’t deal with it. It’s really tough. I feel lucky that I married a man that loved me even when I didn’t love myself. I’ll give him a fake Japanese name, Haru, to protect his identity. He isn’t perfect, and he’s been a jerk at times, but so have I. I think loving someone in spite of their flaws is part of what makes a relationship stand the test of time. We are all inherently flawed because it’s the nature of humanity. But in a good relationship (friendship, sibling, romantic) both people bring out the best in each other, and it’s a win-win situation.

We’ve both grown a lot in the past seven years of our marriage and for the better. A few months ago a geneticist diagnosed me with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a genetic disorder causing defective collagen. My husband finally realized I wasn’t being melodramatic about my health, and that I have debilitating chronic pain. He finally made the effort to try to understand. We hardly fight now even though we are still dealing with a lot of difficult things, such as cultural barriers, intimacy issues (having bad hips makes that difficult), and my massive student loan debt from grad school. And then there are things we used to take for granted, like bowling, camping, exercising, hiking, walking, and traveling. It’s difficult for me to do these things because my body is so fragile. But we watch movies together and play video games, which we both enjoy. We are nice to each other, and we both thank each other when we do the chores. I do most of them currently because I’m not working, but he still thanks me for cooking dinner and doing the dishes. I thank him when he does chores as well. Also, my health is on the upswing now, so we’re both pretty thrilled about that and the fact I can work soon 8D

Anyway, this post is supposed to be about how we met XD I’ve mentioned before that I have a soft spot in my heart for Asian guys, especially Japanese men. It’s ironic given my height of 6’0″, lol. For those that are curious, my husband is only an inch shorter than me, so he’s pretty tall for a Japanese guy. I was taking a Japanese language class at the time. We both went to the same community college. I was in the cafeteria and saw him sitting at the counter with a friend. He was wearing an orange shirt and blue windbreaker pants. I am actually really shy around people I don’t know. So I put my Japanese language book on top of the stuff I was carrying, and sat down next to him, hoping he would notice. I pretended to study. Within like 30 seconds he struck up a conversation with me. I think his opening line was, “Are you taking Japanese?” XD We really hit it off despite the fact that his English wasn’t that great at the time, and my ability to speak Japanese was almost non-existent. He’s fluent in both now, but I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to move to another country, and take college classes in a foreign language.

He was such a nice guy and treated me like a princess while we were dating. We were friends for a bit, and finally we started going out. I think he told me he loved me about a week after we started dating XD He was my first boyfriend since I didn’t date anyone in high school. I ended up breaking up with him shortly after I transferred to UC Berkeley. He was at another college, so our relationship turned into a long distance one. I was changing so much at the time and didn’t know what I wanted. I was recovering from my anorexia only to develop hypothyroidism (which was diagnosed 2 years later). We remained friends, but he was still very hurt. He was looking to move because there were too many memories of me here, and he couldn’t take it. I’m tearing up talking about this ;____; I went out with several guys at UC Berkeley, most of them jerks. I really missed Haru, and we rekindled our romance. Within like 2-3 months of getting back together we got engaged, and six months later we were married. His mother was worried about our marriage, and I completely understood. She had only met me once in Japan, and I was anorexic, so I was struggling with my own demons at the time. His family is so loving and caring. I knew she just wanted what was best for her son. She has been very caring and supportive since our marriage. I wish his family lived closer so I could spend the holidays with them :$

So yeah, that’s it. I wouldn’t have had a problem meeting guys on Match.com. I did try eHarmony while me and Haru were broken up, and it said that they couldn’t find anyone compatible for me. My roommate and I laughed so hard at that XDDDDDDD I definitely feel lucky to be married to Haru. I’m writing him a card, and we are going out to dinner tonight. I’m looking forward to it 😀 We don’t usually get each other gifts. Sometimes we do, but it’s usually something small. I don’t really need a gift from him to prove how much he loves me. The fact that cleaned the cats’ litterbox for 10 weeks while I was recovering from my last hip surgery proves it XD

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8 thoughts on “The Story of How I Met My Husband”

Awww this is so cuuute (how you two got married and met)! Happy anniversary, too! 🙂 I’m glad your marriage is getting much better than before and that some tensions had subsided 🙂 It’s wonderful that he’s been there for you through all of it, despite the emotional and physical difficulties. I hope you two have loads of fun tonight! 😀

Thank you so much for the thoughtful comment! Yes, I feel very lucky to have him as my husband 😀 I actually used to think of him as my guardian angel because he’s helped me through some of the toughest periods in my life. When I broke up with him my mom was devastated because she had grown to love him, but our story had a happy ending ^-^ We’re both happy that I’m doing better physically because that means I can work and we can potentially start a family :3

That’s a very inspiring story! I’m kind of sad I already posted my “What’s Up Wednesday” for this week because I would have put this under the ‘what inspires me right now’ section. I’m not married, but I think that any relationship, whether you’re dating, engaged or married, needs to have that element of trust and love in it that let’s you get through anything together. I myself have a problem with my anxiety, so when I’m stressed it’s really hard on my boyfriend because I feel like I don’t love him anymore (I don’t feel anything, for that matter, aside from a need to cry all the time). Thank you for this post, I really needed it to keep me going 🙂 Congratulations on your anniversary, hopefully there’s many more to come!

Thank you for the lovely comment 😀 My husband and I have discussed divorce before, so there were periods where we didn’t like each other XD I mean any close relationship has those moments. I love my sister a lot, but we have gotten in some pretty bad fights before. I think if your boyfriend really loves you he will understand your bouts of anxiety, or will try to at least 🙂 I had anxiety attacks along with depression back when I was 17-20. That was my worst anorexic episode. It can be really awful. I haven’t had to deal with it since. None of us are perfect, and I think that’s part of loving someone, accepting them for who they are. I hope you and your boyfriend have many good years to come as well ^^

That’s beautiful. 🙂 It’s lovely that you and your husband have really stuck together through thick and thin. My parents got divorced when I was small, and it’s hard, especially when they fight all the time. It was hard on my parents, too, especially my mom. Good job staying together!

I’m glad me and my husband didn’t have kids right away actually. It definitely can strain a marriage. We are hoping to start a family later this year or early next year. I’m sorry your parents got divorced. It tends to be an ugly situation for everyone involved 😦 Sometimes it isn’t even anyone’s fault. It’s hard to say why some relationships work and some don’t. I feel lucky mine has worked out for seven years :$

wow, im so glad i found your blog, im trying to catch up on all of your past entries i suffered from anorexia too for years and am now in the recovery/balancing everything stage. it’s really ironic because im a kinsiologist (exercise science) and am supposed to be able to help ppl with the very issue i struggle with. your blog is really helping me relax about it and not get too frustrated with personal demons, as you call them.
you seem to have been thru a lot, but your attitude is incredible. im sure you have bad days but the way you express what youve gone thru here is super helpful. tomorrow im going to the doctor for therapy on other stuff (some throat issues) so reading this kind of soothed me. again thanks for sharing, i look forward to reading your other blogs!

Awwww, I’m glad I could help 🙂 Also, your comment was so incredibly sweet :$ I don’t feel worthy of such praise!

This started out as a health blog, but after my last hip surgery I didn’t want to talk about it anymore, lol. If you’ve read a few of my posts then you probably know I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which is a relatively rare genetic disease causing defective collagen. It affects the whole body, and it is different for everyone with EDS, but my biggest issues are joint instability and pain. I might post another update about my hip soon because it’s been partially dislocating, so I may need another hip preservation surgery. Not sure yet. It’s weird because I go back and forth between being super obsessed with my health issues and then ignoring them and living in denial.

After my last hip surgery, I shifted my focus back to writing, which is something I started years ago when my health took a sharp decline. Well, I started out in fanfiction actually XD I just made the switch to original fiction last year. A lot of things I write about are kind of dark. I’m almost finished with a short story about suicide, and I guess I wrote it because I had contemplated it in the past, but was terrified I would go to hell, so it’s something the character deals with as well. The protagonist is a self-hater and it’s about him finding redemption in this life and the next. It’s cathartic for my soul to pour out the angst on paper (Well, not really paper since I write exclusively on a laptop XD)

I’m sorry to hear you have struggled with anorexia too 😦 It’s something you have to spend the rest of your life fighting because it’s an addiction to starvation and in some cases self-hate. I only realized recently that it was a manifestation of my self-hate, which would explain why I had my first episode at 10 years old. I consider myself in remission now, and hopefully I’ll stay that was for a long time. I wasn’t always this composed about my health issues :$ I joined several support groups for EDS and hip preservation and that helped me a lot. The self-hate is better now that I have recognized it as a part of who I am. I don’t think it ever goes away, but it’s better now and not affecting my life as much. I credit many of my friends for helping me work through it. There is such a huge taboo in our society about mental illness. My parents refused to get me treatment during my worst anorexic episode from 18-20. They thought I was doing it for attention and that treatment at an anorexia facility would blemish my record. That may have been true fifty years ago, but HIPPA protects patient’s medical records. I did end up seeing a therapist a few years ago for chronic pain, but he also specialized in eating disorders and that helped me as well.

Good luck with your throat issues. I hope the doctor can figure out what’s wrong. *Hugs*